Blog - Jazz Spectrum

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 11/8-11/10

November 6, 2024

By Fritz ByersFritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly, The noted Sixteenth-Century jazz critic Martin Luther is said to have professed, “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant an apple tree today.” For reasons that are indistinct, this wise moral resolution is paired in my mind today with another psychological truth, which, like alarmingly many in conventional Anglo-American culture, can be sourced to Samuel Johnson: “When a man knows h Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 9/27 - 9/29

September 26, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

By Fritz ByersEach week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Hi Aly, I’ve often wondered about the reasons behind the oodles of ironic references to jazz that Big Time cultural tastemakers shoehorn into their pop concoctions. For instance, I have a dim memory of there being a slightly mocking reference to the nonpareil bassist Charles Mingus in Jerry Maguire, although I’m not curious enough to verify this by rewatching it. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 9/20-9/22

September 19, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

JULIETA EUGENIO with Marta Sanchez, Matt Dwonszyk, and Steven Krammer, SMALL’S JAZZ CLUB, 5 SEPTEMBER 2024, 10:30 pm setBy Kim Kleinman, Contributing WriterFritz framed his essay on the best jazz albums of 2022 around Julieta Eugenio’s Jump, an astonishing tenor/bass/drums date that, as he put it, Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 8/23-8/25

August 22, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

By Fritz ByersEach week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly, Miles Davis, not widely known as a charitable praise-giver but certainly a lord of the manor when it comes to identifying true genius as opposed to the counterfeit variety, said on the occasion of Duke Ellington’s passing in 1974, “I think all the musicians should get together one certain day and get down on their knees and thank Duke.” (Miles was rarely inadvertent in his word choices, so I’ve always thrilled Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 8/9-8/11

August 8, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

By Fritz ByersEach week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly, Last week, we concentrated on “The Last Time I Saw Paris.” The song evokes a piercing sentiment, a moment that stops time, and then the frozen moment sticks with you forever. This week, I’m remembering the first time I saw a Breughel painting – we’re talking here about Pieter the Elder. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 8/2-8/4

July 31, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

By Fritz ByersEach week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly, In a documentary on the life and art of the saxophonist Charlie Parker (aka “Bird”) that I saw in the late 1980s – I think it was Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker, directed by Gary Giddins and closely tied to Gary’s unrivaled book of the same title – a fellow be-bopper of Bird’s -- I think it was the alto saxophonist Frank Morgan -- reminisced about the thrill of hearing him in full flight. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 7/26-7/28

July 24, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

By Fritz ByersEach week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly, At a recent Let’s Get Acquainted team-building exercise (don’t ask), the moderator stole a question from the NYT Book Review regular feature, By the Book, in which a writer is asked a series of probing queries. She presented the group with the inquiry: “You’ve having a dinner party. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 7/19-7/21

July 15, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.By Fritz ByersDear Aly,
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This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 6/28-6/30

June 25, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Song of the Week – “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” – Music by Tommy Wolf, Lyrics by Fran Landesman Dear Aly, Last week at dinner, a friend and I were talking about Salman Rushdie’s new book, Knife, an extended and moving reflection on an extremist’s demented attempt to stab him to death, thirty years after the fatwa that was decreed against him for the act of publishing a work of imaginative fiction. Read More

Blog - Jazz Spectrum

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